University of Lincoln awarded £1.7m to Investigate Equitable and Innovative Solutions to Climate Change Impacts

A major new research project from the University of Lincoln, UK will investigate solutions to the effects of climate change while addressing mounting concerns that current strategies are resurrecting historical colonial ideas.

The extreme effects of climate change disproportionately affect marginalised populations who have historically contributed the least greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr Matthew Hannaford, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Lincoln is launching research into climate history across Africa in an effort to utilise local knowledge and find effective and equitable initiatives to adapt to the harms of climate change.

Dr Hannaford explains the importance of working with local organisations to co-produce these initiatives: “By examining lived experiences of climate in the past, this research will shed light on how colonial ideas and initiatives reshaped local strategies to adapt to extreme weather events (for example by prioritising cash cropping over the cultivation of drought-resistant grains), but also how Africans resisted and influenced these changes.

“The project will work with local stakeholders to create new tools and methodologies that will enable historical knowledge to inform future responses to climate change. This will help ensure that new adaptation interventions reduce vulnerabilities rather than reproduce existing ones.”

The £1.7m UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship will support a team of early career researchers to investigate the transformation of knowledge and practices relating to climate during colonial rule in three African contexts: southern Mozambique, western Zimbabwe and southern Malawi.

These areas suffer a high frequency of climatic extremes and are grappling with food insecurity, in addition to having experienced varying configurations of colonialism under the British or Portuguese empire.

They also benefit from rich collections of historical documentation and oral histories. The study will examine these archives to learn more about the evolution of local and Western climate knowledge during the 19^th and early-20^th centuries.

Using this information, Dr Hannaford aims to integrate climate histories into foresight planning. He hopes that this will drive the formulation of improved and inclusive adaptation.

Dr Hannaford has previously led work toward achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by co-organising workshops with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation around food security. This latest research project represents his continued commitment to addressing some of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century.